Why All the Swine Flu Drama?

Okay I'm a little confused how can people die from the regular flu if they have got a flu shot?

They can die from the flu if it's not addressed and the swine flu is just a little bit more resourceful. Still, it's a virus and there is no known cure for any virus. Your immune system is what kicks out all the bad anti-bodies.

A bad or low immune system would not hold up to an attack from any strain of flu without medical attention. That's one reason.

All a flu shot is, is a shot of the virus to help your body build up it's immunities. That's all it is, that's why you get sick after a flu shot.

Wow Ram, that's a scary thought isn't it? Guess I'm happy that our son isn't in school yet and we rarely get out (except to go to the store) lol.

I'm surprised we haven't seen an influx in campaigns like Debra was explaining though. Trends and what's hot... well the Swing flu definitely is all over and everyone is talking about it.

There are a lot of scams already popping up. Offers of a vaccine (doesn't exist), etc. If you have something helpful and genuine to offer, I'd say go for it.

As to the threat itself, I'm just going to use precautions. No groups of people (dining out, sporting events, concerts) and doing my grocery shopping after midnight on a Saturday when there's like 3 people in the store.

Oh well, "Viral" Marketing.

I must say I've jumped on the bandwagon. I come up on the first page of Google for a certain search term for the Swine Flu, and traffic is okay for now, close to 100 hits daily.

I use StatCounter to track how people got to my page, and some search results are quite interesting, like "foods that prevent swine flu" (I'm on the first page for that search), and some interesting ones like "will kfc affect your chances of getting swine flu" (I also rank for that one, first!)

There are plenty of other strange and funny search results, so maybe this helps in getting keywords set up.

What is really cool is that the links on this page of the CDC website linking to how to tell the difference between a flu and a cold are broken:

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/disease.htm

Our brilliant government dollars at work.

Perfect timing.

In the last 4 months tens of thousands of cases of the flu have been reported in the US:

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/

55 infants have died.

These are only the reported cases.

Compare that with only 100 cases reported in the US of the swine flu and one death that has sparked the government to distribute stockpiles of anti viral to stem a "possible pandemic."

The one thing that is concerning is the high percentage of deaths among reported cases. However, if you take into consideration the likely much higher volume of unreported cases that statistic would decline.

Blatant hype and panic-inducing glitz is what I see in the headlines. The regular flu will probably kill far more people this year yet this swine flu is doing its dose of fear-mongering. Remember the West Nile Virus? Y2K? I hate seeing words like pandemic used when it seems like .0000001% of our population will ever be affected by this.

Fear is money.

Las Vegas Nevada has a policy which has worked for years. Why can't we learn form them.

What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas ...

We should have this policy ... Stay out of the affairs of the world and keep the world out of our affairs. Keep our money home and trade. If the middle east wants wheat, we can trade them for oil. If they want to be stupid, let them eat their oil and we'll get our own. If someone wants to come to this country, let them do it legally.

BTW, here is a freebie, I have been healthy for close to 10 years...no flu, no cold, NADA.

Here is why and it was highly recommended as the number one preventative against the swine flu, by Larry Harris who was a biologist for the US government who started exposing the threat back in 1994. They managed to silence him.

Ionic colloidal silver...Google it...you can make it yourself with parts from radio shack for under $20 or buy it and pay from $100 - $400 ...I'm going to take one of mine apart and take picture and upload it to a website over the next week and also pull out Larry VHS and see if I can break it down to put online....

If any of you Video experts know how to do this, I'm open to suggestion....hint "Josh"

This is a 30 minute Video that will shock you. His Grand-parents lived through the last 1918 horror and that is why he dedicated his life to the study of Biological warfare defense!

I personally do not see any threat in the near future but the day is coming when you will need to be prepared.

The first step is start speaking the positive and stop confessing the negative...

The missing ingredient in the SECRET is you need to verbally say what you want in life.

If you want a new car then when you leave your house turn to your significant other, even if it's your cat, and say I'm taking the Hummer (or whatever) to the store. It does not matter if you drive a 10 year old jeep.

Remember the Genie say..."Your wish is my Command" But guess what? you have to tell him...He cannot read your mind.

The biggest lie in history which we teach our children is to blow out the Birthday candles and make a wish but...DO NOT TELL ANYONE!!!! Wake up people...

OK...I need to stop here...

MO

I'll be glad when all of this is old news like the bird flu virus. WF have an archive to check that?

If it bleeds it leads/ so a deadly germ that kills will attract more attention than crysisler going under. I mean the banksters and used car dealers are not my fav people. See this video about why I see.

Twilight Zone - Half Hour Video - The Whole Truth - CBS.com

Does anyone know of a swine flu affiliate I could promote?

H1N1 is NOT transmissible via pork products. It is a mutation that has jumped species and is now transmitted through human-to-human contact.

This sort of ignorant posting is completely irresponsible.

Please educate yourself before posting opinions as fact in ways that could negatively impact public health. Consider going to the Center for Disease Control at CDC.gov and getting some real info.

The last major pandemic that resembles this outbreak was the Spanish Flu of 1918. 50 million people died from it, mostly healthy young adults. I'm pretty sure Big Pharma had nothing to do with it.

Luckily no matter what my kids and I are always home lol

Though I agree that pharmaceutical companies are taking advantage, concerns about the swine flu are mostly warranted. It has come at a time when flu epidemics don't usually make their rounds; it is a fresh, new strain that we're not 'quite' sure how to deal with, and it could easily mutate as it makes its way through the population. We didn't see it coming, and we didn't develop a vaccine for it. So yeah, it could cause a lot of damage; 'could' being the operative word. Odds are good that it will run its course without causing any more deaths than any of the other flu strains, and that'll be the end of that. We just don't know for sure, and that is what's making people uneasy.

I live about 20 minutes from the school in Queens, NY where there was an incident of the swine flu.

The doctors offices in my area are getting bombarded with parents bringing their kids in to get checked. One little sneeze and it's off to the doctor. My daughter was feeling a bit under the weather and of course my wife insisted that I take her to the doctor. She didn't have any of the symptoms and the doctor didn't even bother to test her for swine flu. But he kindly took his insurance money and my co-pay.

I guess financially it's good for the doctors but bad for the insurance companies.

The media is really powerful. I'm waiting for the "Swine Flu Survival Kit" CPA offers to come out.

It's just what's hot on the news right know. I believe I probably have a better chance of winning the lottery than to get the Swine Flu.

There are four different issues as to why the swine flu is getting so much press & why all the closures and the like.

1. This flu strain is hitting in an off season so many were not prepared for it.

2. The name "swine" flu kind of freaks people out. They should have just said that a strain of flu was going around.

3. The numbers that came out of Mexico are all screwy. They only have 18 confirmed deaths and the CDC believes that this strain of flu has been rampant in Mexico for about 4 months without their health department going to any special measures and the estimate is about how many may have had it (and does have it) is about 200,000. Now if you take the death rate of confirmed cases compared to how many people actually had it - it's much less severe than what was originally stated when it was finally announced.

4. Obama --he stated that the last administration screwed up with the communication about Katrina and that he wanted to get this out to everyone as quickly as possible. I think that this is the top reason for all the fear out there. News comes out as fast as it occurs and the facts aren't getting checked. So with all this mis-information it looks so much worse than it is.

The CDC is now stating that there is a good chance that this strain will become much more active in the fall & winter which is the usual flu season.

I have my 22 year old home sick that just tested positive today for strep & the doctor thinks that he may possibly also have the flu. I have no concern about the flu, but strep certainly sucks.

Well anyway I feel a bit safe of living in Denmark then. Some experts have said that the swine flu probably isn't much worse than what we are used to here.

Those damn pigs are always out to bring down the innocent man!
(is that a US only joke?)

FYI - an average of 36,000 people die in the US each year because of the flu (it ranges from 20-50k). Thats with the shots and modern medicine.

The problem with this version is that in addition to being very virulent and aggressive, its actually killing some people that aren't in the high-risk group for flue-related deaths (babies, elderly, immune deficient, etc.). From what I heard, its the overactive immune response to the virus that is causing problems by filling people's lungs with fluid (which is a natural immune response).

So - even hundreds of deaths are just a drop in the bucket compared to the regular flu... Its just that this one is hard on a wider range of people.

There capitalizing on the FEAR or people.....that's all I see in the paper...SWINE FLU this and SWINE FLU that!

Sweetie, IF you had a baby and you thought for ONE second that it had Swine Flu, you would walk across broken glass, swim a raging river and punch out anyone who stood in your way to help that unfortunate child. All the "Swine Flu Drama" as you put it is about HUMAN LIFE. (I almost said, "You twit" but I held myself back.) Are you THAT insensitive? Get a HEART dear.

All the best,
Beatrix

Why the drama?


BECAUSE PEOPLE FEAR DEATH!

Have some compassion. People are afraid their kids are gonna
get sick and die.

The damn flu just turned up in the Amherst college student
body and my girlfriend has a young daughter in the local
school here. We aren't freaked out but it's no joking
matter.

Regardless of how much money one could make off this why participate in spreading more fear like our gov is doing currently?

Yes I agree if one is going to get involved getting facts straight would be nice but come on...

watch this video of Vice Pres Biden and show me a government doing what's right based on facts. LOL!!


If you really want to get into what might be going on listen to this call from Joyce Riley's radio show the last week of March I believe. Talk about making your hair stand up!!


For even more video fun search youtube for FEMA Camps

What I see is, a great buzz is created for Swin Flu. Can any one quote the real stats for the effected population and how many are medically serious.

There was one Bird Flu case in one poultry farm. People left eating chicken resulting drastic prices declines. Not even a single patient registered for Bird Flu Virus but the buzzzzz cause a serious destruction of Poultry Industry. The pharma industry enjoyed the benefits.

So I agree, fear is money...

I agree.
Government and social media are always
used in order to seed panic among the people.
Panic->Fear->Money for the Government.

Just watch zeitgeist and you'll know what I
talking about.

PLEASE stop the political BS! It doesn't belong here. Period.

~Michael

Watch out for all the swine flu scams, there are junk ebooks and swine flu kits popping up everywhere. I wrote a scam article on it,Swine Flu Scam - Profiting Off An Epidemic if anyone is interested in the scams that are popping up.

Thank you for supporting my point, because that's EXACTLY, 100% what the "natural remedies" crowd does with the FDA, government and pharmaceutical companies.

True marketing indeed.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not so foolish as to think the drug companies are altruistic. They're in it for the money, too.

It sounds like we agree that there are good and bad aspects of each camp.

I do my best to not take medicine of any kind. Sometimes I just have to. But I don't grab an aspirin when I get a headache, have never taken an antacid, etc.

Too many people are too quick to medicate themselves (pharma or natural) at the slightest hint of discomfort.

~Michael

In the U.S...

Over 300 Million People....less than 200 reported cases = 0.00006666666666666667% of people infected = mass paranoia and alarm and non stop media coverage and fear mongering = ridiculous nonsense


From The CDC:

Every year in the United States, on average:

* 5% to 20% of the population gets the flu;
* more than 200,000 people are hospitalized from flu-related complications; and
* about 36,000 people die from flu-related causes.

CDC - Influenza (Flu) | What Everyone Should Know About Flu and the Flu Vaccine


Sooooo...according to these numbers up to 60 Million people a year get the "normal" flu in some form and it is business as usual...nothing to see here...please move along

But 200 cases of this flu = panic.

Completely absurd.

It is not that it's just 200 cases, it's the type of case and how it spread.

This is a different strain of flu. When a flu virus is transmitted from animal to human (as is often the case) there is less cause for concern. However, this bug has made the leap and is transferred from person to person. That's only one part of it.

You could talk all day long about certain numbers. One I've seen tossed around is that roughly the same number of people die in US automobile accidents every year. But, it is very unlikely that there will all of a sudden be a huge jump in that number - for any reason.

So far, we have been dodging bullets for the last 40 years (Hong Kong flu, 1968). Any flu has the potential of becoming a pandemic, and this one has shown signs of doing just that.

Absurd? Not even a little bit.

What is absurd is that too many people don't understand pandemics and would rather blame some pharmo-governmental conspiracy than accept something as silly as science.

I honestly hope they have been overreacting, but another part of me fears that they waited too long to do too little.

The one thing I think both sides could agree to? Only time will tell.

~Michael

Without facts it is impossible to see the bigger picture, the problem is many people are quick to blame anyone, everyone for the situation without knowing the truth behind it.

Michael, I have to agree with you. I also don't take medication unless I really, really have to. The last time I saw a doctor was 5 or 6 years ago, but there are times when medication is essential, and people who don't know what they are talking about do more damage than good.